Israel, dismembered and depopulated, tot
tered on the edge of national oblivion. Death
claimed Tiglath-pileser III in 727 B.C., but
Shalmaneser V, who followed him on the
throne, continued to exact heavy tribute.
Finally, lured by promises of Egyptian aid,
Hoshea rebelled. Shalmaneser struck back;
in quick succession he captured Hoshea,
"shut him up, and bound him in prison," and
besieged Samaria. For three years the last
doomed stronghold of Israel fought off the
Assyrians, but the result was inevitable. Late
in 722 or early in 721, the Assyrian host
streamed in through the city gates.
At about this same time, Shalmaneser V
died, and his successor, Sargon II, assumed
credit for the victory. Digging at Dur Sharru
kin (Khorsabad) in Iraq in 1843, a French
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PAINTINGBY H. J. SOULEN (9 NATIONALGEOGRAPHICSOCIETY
archeologist came upon the remains of Sar
gon's palace. Here the king had inscribed
accounts of this triumph. One proclaims:
"I besieged and conquered Samaria, led away
as booty 27,290 inhabitants of it.... I installed
over them an officer of mine and imposed
upon them the tribute of the former king."
Sargon Leveled Samaria's Cities
At Shechem during this past summer, we
unearthed dramatic proof of the violence of
the final Assyrian assault upon Israel (page
816). Immediately below the earliest Samari
tan houses, three to four feet of debris covered
the last Israelite floors. Gradually we man
aged to distinguish the mud bricks from the
mud plaster that had sloughed from the walls,
while we easily separated both from the great